Stoke allows a non-linear workflow and supports scripting inside 3ds Max.

Thinkbox Software today added to its lineup of innovative animation and simulation tools with the launch of Stoke MX, a particle simulator plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max designed to simplify and accelerate the creation of high-volume particle clouds driven by velocity fields.

Stoke MX supports a wide variety of emitter and velocity sources, and introduces new workflows. Previously unavailable capabilities include multi-threaded particle advection, rapid memory-buffered playback, and asynchronous multi-threaded particle file saving, which Thinkbox says enables higher performance compared to existing workflows.

In essence, Stoke enables a new way of working with particle clouds. Instead of being stuck in a linear simulation workflow, artists can layer their particles and work backwards to mix, enhance or alter simulation data without having to re-simulate. “It opens up a lot of possibilities,” says Thinkbox founder Chris Bond.

Key features of Stoke MX include:

• Particle generation from other particle systems, geometry surfaces, volumes, vertices and edges including selection and soft-selection support, as well as from Sitni Sati’s FumeFX simulations
• Optional emitter channel acquisition with minimal overhead
• Particle advection using velocities from other particle systems or files, 3ds Max force space warps, FumeFX simulations, Thinkbox’s Ember simulations, and other Stoke simulations
• Velocity field mixing, scaling and optional divergence removal from particle-based velocity fields to produce uncompressible fluid motion
• Flexible memory caching for fast simulation iterations and interactive viewport playback
• PRT file saving using one or more background threads, decoupling the simulation from the particle saving process for even faster iterations
• Integration with local and Thinkbox’s Deadline partitioning
• MAXScript exposure enabling the creation of custom Stoke-based tools
• Compatible with the Thinkbox’s Krakatoa MX high-volume particle renderer and its various components including PRT Loader and other PRT objects, Magma and delete modifiers, particle data viewer, etc.
• Compatible with Thinkbox Software’s Frost particle mesher (version 1.3.5 and higher)

Visual effects artist Jason Crosby used a pre-release version of Stoke in the feature film After Earth, which opens May 31. “For the wormhole shot in After Earth, Stoke allowed me to come up with a look in just a couple days. Creating iterations was a very quick process.”

The Stoke MX base package includes one workstation and two network simulation licenses. Additional network simulation licenses can be purchased individually.

Our take

Thinkbox keeps cranking out innovative physics-based tools for animation and VFX. We have heard that various companies in the manufacturing & digital reality space (3D CAD/scanning/printing) are intrigued by what Thinkbox is doing, but we can’t name names.

The YouTube video below is a short animation (0:26) provided by Torbjorn “Tobbe” Olsson showing a base Naiad simulation of up to 170,000 particles over 300 frames.